Archive for the ‘blogs’ Category

Let me clarify a few things that should be obvious, but evidently are being overlooked by some people:
1. This isn’t just about “SWATting,” but about a broad pattern of harassment by Kimberlin and his associates.
2. We don’t know who was responsible for the alleged SWATtings of Patterico, Erick Erickson or Mike Stack.
3. Nearly all the harassment being carried out online — we won’t name the website or Twitter accounts involved, nor describe the types of harassment involved — is being done under pseudonyms and we will not know who did what unless and until there is criminal prosecution of the persons responsible.
4. Neal Rauhauser has previously described Kimberlin as his “client.” It is therefore entirely reasonable to suspect that Rauhauser is being paid (and may be paying others) to conduct an aggressive online assault against Kimberlin’s critics.

It isn’t clear how the killers selected their victims, as such blogs usually allow anonymous comments.

I’ll let the techies discuss how hard or how easy it would be to find the IP address of a post or a comment and compare it to the IP address of a smart phone from someone you have kidnapped. However, it is clear that the narcos are driving their point of dominance by terror.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, and for bloggers.

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On a side note, while I visit Instapundit every day and am grateful for his links, it’s a sad day to see this entry,

The 6,000 bloggers who write for free for the HuffPo aren’t too happy that ZsaZsa gets $100 million while they get nothing, even when the bloggers contribute voluntarily, unpaid, out of their own free will,AOL, Arianna Huffington Hit with Class Action Suit

Today, a group of bloggers led by union organizer and journalist Jonathan Tasini filed a class-action suit against the Huffington Post, founderArianna Huffington, and AOL, which acquired the news-and-blogs site in February.

Tasini, the lead plaintiff, has been a blogger for Huffpo since December 2005, when the site was just seven months old. According to his blogger page, however, he stopped posting on February 10, three days after the purchase of the site by AOL was announced. I emailed him for more information about the suit; he responded by inviting me to participate in a telephone press conference. (Update: On the call this morning, Tasinivowed to make Huffington “a pariah in the progressive community” and said his goal is to set a precedent that writers must share in the value they create.)

Their lawsuit is based on unjust enrichment. As a nice bonus, they get to claim victimhood – self-imposed victimhood, the best kind.

A. HuffPo is required to fork over millions of dollars to these crybaby free-bloggers; or

B. The crybaby free-bloggers, who are all a bunch of left-wing idiots, get screwed raw.

What’s not to like here? Legally, I don’t think the crybabies have a leg to stand on, but at least they’re forcing HuffPo to hire lawyers to defend against this nuisance suit. And while I think HuffPo will ultimately prevail — where’s the fine-print contractual agreement that obligates anybody to pay a dime to these free-blogging losers? — the biggest payoff will be in disabusing ex-HuffPosters of their idealistic notions that they were part of a ”progressive community.” Here’s my message to the HuffPo crybabies:

WAKE THE HELL UP, YOU DUMMIES!

The “progressive community” was never anything but a three-card monte hustle. The only requirement for membership in the “progressive community” is sufficient naivete to believe that your volunteer efforts accomplish anything other than enhancing the wealth, power and status of your so-called “leaders.”

Even though small-time bloggers aren’t exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any “activity for profit,” says tax attorney Michael Mandale of Center City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies “whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year,” he adds.

So even if your blog collects a handful of hits a day, as long as there’s the potential for it to be lucrative — and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising — the city thinks you should cut it a check. According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelance writers. As former City Paper news editor Doron Taussig once lamented [Slant, “Taxed Out,” April 28, 2005], the city considers freelancers — which both Bess and Barry are, in addition to their blog work — “businesses,” and requires them to pay for a license and pay taxes on their profits, on top of their state and federal taxes.

I’m sure that the local Democratic party leaders will be happy enough to explain why it’s vitally necessary to hit up individual folks for licenses to (among other things) blog – and why it’s vitally important to concentrate on the ‘law’ part of ‘boneheaded law,’ and ignore ‘boneheaded’ completely – but out here in Real-Person Land the phrase “absurd nonsense” comes to mind.

As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.

TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

accidentally posted their procedures guide on the net, and while the secret parts were blacked out, there are software programs that can help people with nefarious intent to see under those “black marks.”